World Bank Says 600 Million New Jobs Needed Over 15 Years

By Sandrine Rastello -
Oct 2, 2012

The global economy will need to have
created 600 million new jobs between 2005 and 2020 to absorb
young people entering the work force, spur development, empower
women and prevent unrest, the World Bank said.

In its World Development Report released yesterday, the
bank said jobs should be at the top of governments’ agendas less
than two years after the lack of employment opportunities helped
fuel the uprisings that toppled leaders in Egypt and Tunisia.
The effects extend beyond the economic sphere, making job
creation a cornerstone to development, the report said.

“Demographic shifts, technological progress, and the
lasting effects of the international financial crisis are
reshaping the employment landscape in countries around the
world,” World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said in a foreword to
the report. “Countries that successfully adapt to these changes
and meet their jobs challenges can achieve dramatic gains in
living standards, productivity growth, and more cohesive
societies.”

After weathering the worst economic downturn since World
War II, many countries have yet to return to pre-crisis levels
of employment just as global expansion slows. Governments have a
role to play in identifying the jobs that most suit their needs
and giving the private sector the incentives to invest,
according to the report.

Asia, Africa

The bank said that by 2020, there will be a need for 600
million more jobs than in 2005, mainly for Asia and sub-Saharan
Africa. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates the current world
population at a little more than 7 billion people.

The impact that jobs have on countries’ development is
familiar to Francois Locoh-Donou, who opened Cajou Espoir,
Togo’s first cashew nuts processing company, eight years ago.
His plant in the northern town of Tchamba, which exports to the
U.S. and Europe, employs 350 people, most of whom are women.

“Before the plant, a lot of women from that region would
leave Togo to go to Nigeria” to find work, Locoh-Donou, who
lives in Washington and is an executive at a telecom-equipment
company, said in a phone interview. “Today they stay in Tchamba
and they support their family,” which has helped improve school
attendance, he said.

Jobs can shape the vision people have of themselves and how
they relate to others. That can have a positive effect, for
instance when work is a place for employees to interact with
people of different genders or ethnicities. It can also be
negative when employment is not available, the World Bank said.

Young Gangs

“Youth may turn to gangs to compensate for the absence of
identity and belonging that a job might provide,” according to
the World Bank report.

Challenges differ depending on countries and their level of
development, their demographics and their institutional
strength, according to the report.

As a result, governments need to define the types of jobs
they think will have the largest impact on their development and
give the private sector, the source of 90 percent of jobs in the
world, the incentives to create them.

Governments also have the responsibility to provide
macroeconomic stability and a favorable business environment,
the bank said.

That includes infrastructure, which Locoh-Donou says he
wishes was better in northern Togo, where his plant has to use
its own power generator and where the national road his company
uses to deliver the cashew nuts is “a catastrophe.”

The report also recommends that governments find a balance
on labor policies to avoid hampering job creation without
leaving the most vulnerable unprotected.